Moving tributes for troubled Sifiso Zulu
Political leaders and friends have paid tribute to troubled former Durban Chamber of Commerce president Sifiso Zulu.
|||Durban - Political leaders and friends have paid tribute to troubled former Durban Chamber of Commerce president Sifiso Zulu, who died on Wednesday.
Zulu, who was born in 1972 and grew up in Chesterville, had been in poor health.
A businessman with the ear of men in high places, Zulu served at the International Chamber of Commerce and was at one stage a board member of Gold Circle Racing and uShaka Marine World.
However he fell from grace in 2008 when he drove his BMW X5 through a red traffic light in Durban and crashed into a bakkie carrying 12 people from the Soul’s Harbour Ministries Church.
Two died and 10 were injured.
Zulu served nine months of a three-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and was released in February in 2013.
He also faced business troubles and in 2011 his estate was put under final sequestration by Ithala Development Finance Corporation, which claimed he owed it R4.8 million.
Deputy minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Bheki Cele said: “With sadness we received the news of the death of Sifiso Zulu. We lost him too quickly. We don’t know why he had to go so early.”
Cele said Zulu had made his mark as a young businessman.
“Unfortunately he has seen it all... We have also seen him encountering serious problems, but finally he went to prison. We were expecting him to fight through and go back to where he was. But it looks like it didn’t happen.
Former Durban city manager and friend, Michael Sutcliffe, said he was “shocked”.
“I have known him since he was a youngster in Chesterville… from before Mandela was released,” he said.
He said Zulu had achieved a lot in life and in business, but it was his contributions to the development of the Point waterfront that stood out.
Sutcliffe said Zulu “did his best to try and reconcile with the family” of the crash victims and that Zulu’s prison experience led to him working to reconcile prisoners with victims’ families.
A friend of Zulu said his family was struggling with his death. He leaves his mother, brother and sister.
Daily News